Rangers fall to Flyers, 2-1, series tied 2-2

Flyers’ Steve Mason stopping Rick Nash in second period of Game 4 on Friday night.

PHILADELPHIA – The Flyers, bolstered by the return of their No. 1 goalie, backed up their captain’s guarantee.

And the Rangers, with a stagnant power play, once again missed an opportunity to give themselves a chance to play a shorter series.

“We’re disappointed for sure,” center Brad Richards said. “We played a lot better game tonight than we did the other night in Philly, lose by one and win by three the other night. That’s hockey.”

The Flyers evened the Eastern Conference first-round series at two games apiece with a 2-1 win over the Rangers on Friday night at the Wells Fargo Center.

The Rangers were 0-for-4 on the power play and managed just one shot on a four-on-three that lasted 1 minute, 27 seconds, bridging the end of the second period into the start of the third.

The Rangers had hoped to take a commanding 3-1 series lead and possibly avoid a long, grueling first round, even if this series will certainly take a physical toll on them.

Henrik Lundqvist stopped 23 shots for the Rangers, keeping the Rangers within goal at 7:03 of the third period with a kick save on Michael Raffl at the crease.

Lundqvist was pulled for an extra skater with 1:15 to play but despite several scrambles at the crease, the Rangers could not notch the equalizer.

Game 5 is Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden and Game 6 will be Tuesday in Philadelphia. Game 7, if necessary, will be Wednesday at the Garden. After the Rangers’ 4-1 Game 3 win Tuesday night, Flyers captain Claude Giroux promised they would, “tie up the series and go back to New York.”

OK, so that wasn’t exactly Mark Messier guaranteeing a Game 6 win the 1994 conference final against the Devils, but Giroux still spoke the truth.

“He said we were going to win and we did. Perfect,” said Jakub Voracek, who got to the crease to deflect Luke Schenn’s shot over Lundqvist’s blocker for a power-play goal to make it 2-1 at 7:22 of the second period. “It worked out well.”

Mason, who had not started a game since leaving a 4-3 overtime win at Pittsburgh on April 12 with an upper-body injury suspected to be a concussion, made 37 saves. That included reaching back with his stick to rob Ryan McDonagh on a backhander at 19:41 of the second period.

“We needed to make it harder on him,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “He saw quite a few of the shots.”

“I don’t think it was difficult enough,” added left wing Rick Nash who, along with Mats Zuccarello each had five shots while Richards had a game-high six. “Get more traffic, more primary scoring chances. We had a lot of stuff from the outside.”

Nash was speaking in general terms but could have specifically been talking about himself as he was ineffectual.

He was not included in the four-man power play unit to start the third period as Vigneault put Richards, McDonagh and Derek Stepan on the ice. Still, those four mainly passed around the perimeter.

“We made it easy,” Richards said. “There’s got to be a lot more movement.”

“We had some good looks but at this time of the year, you need more than good looks, you need to get the job done,” Vigneault added. “[The four on three] we had the unit on the ice we felt could get it done. We didn’t execute real well.”

The Rangers are now 3-for-20 on the power play in the series, with the three goals coming in the first two games.

The Rangers clearly wanted to test Mason early and did so with a 16-6 shot advantage in the first period. But that just resulted in a disappointing, 1-1 tie.

Dominic Moore gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead at 4:38 with a wraparound at the right post immediately after exiting the penalty box for hooking Zac Rinaldo.

But Matt Read tied the game at 1 at 8:55, getting to the right post to knock in the ricochet of Jason Akeson’s initial shot off defenseman Kevin Klein’s leg and then the backboards.

The Rangers have not won a playoff series in less than seven games since beating the Devils in five games in the first round in 2008.